Privé
by ranchozabaco
Summary: Even the wicked grieve.


It was Tuesday and it was the first time she had left her room for seventy-six hours.

Another night had gone by leaving her awake and puffy-eyed, wishing that she had taken something to help her sleep. She had given up on the idea of a good night's rest close to dawn and poured a scalding hot bath. Then the cleaning began. Alecto wasn't sure from where that particular compulsion had come from, for she was used to domestics and house elves cleaning up after her. However, she found herself shining and dusting and clearing out the clutter from her room.

The bed she did not touch, in fact she believed she could not even change the sheets, because they still smelled of him. The pillow smelled of his soap, the strongest testament to his presence in her room, and the sheets had the faint scent of his sweat and his sex and whatever fragrance he used, something like cedar or sandalwood. She had taken his side of the bed for the past few nights, yelling and sobbing and subconsciously setting off charms and curses that had set fire to the window seat.

Eventually she had thrown on a pair of shorts and an ancient tee shirt and padded out of her room barefoot, wandering the halls without direction. Alecto found her way to the kitchen, the tiles freezing beneath her feet, and picked numbly at a hunk of brown bread.

It was here Barty found her and she glanced in his direction, letting loose a dry sob from her throat.

x x x

He had heard someone turning on the taps sometime in the middle of the night and had assumed it was someone off to work early. It had roused him from sleep, but only for a moment. It was an early morning to him, but well after nine when he strode into the kitchen to make breakfast, and he yawned and raked his fingers over his scalp as he entered. The sight of Alecto, the state of her appearance, was enough to wake Barty completely and violently. She looked a total wreck: hair tossed up at the back of her head, the strands surrounding her face frizzed into a chestnut-colored halo; four days without eating left her looking dull and underweight, her body hidden away in a tent of a shirt. He did not see his dear friend but a shell, a ghost of who she was. Her eyes were red but he expected that.

Barty had no words for her as he rushed to her and enclosed her pitiful form in his arms. She started crying, a little freer than her first little sob, but did not raise her arms to embrace him. The piece of bread fell from Alecto's hand and rolled once or twice on the marble countertop.

"Barty," she whispered hoarsely. He released her and stood back a little, incredibly unsure of himself.

"I'm glad to see you," he murmured as he attempted to smile. She had managed to stop crying by the time she settled into the tall barstool Barty moved closer to her. He hadn't seen her since the morning after Evan died; Barty had stayed up with her most that night and left before she woke, thinking selfishly that he would dodge her reaction when she awoke and remembered what had happened. As it turned out, she slept until six that evening and stayed silent most of the night, leaving his fears unfounded. He was searching his brain for something- preferably the right thing- to do for her. Alecto's head hung as if she couldn't quite lift it, and the sight of her was growing more disturbing.

"You're hungry?" he asked, expecting a snappy retort from her, but she said nothing for a moment. Then she nodded. Barty clamored into action. He took out a great iron pot and lit the pilot light, then rummaging through the cupboards.

"Yeah hungry, good, for what then? Soup? Mashed potatoes? Pasta?" he stammered. Then he heard something utterly magical, a high lilting laugh that was devoid of any sadness. He looked over his shoulder to catch her wiping her eyes, wearing a beautiful grin on her face.

"That's all you know how to cook," she said, still chuckling, "Soup, please. Very thin, very hot soup would be amazing."

He took a tin of soup from the cupboard and went to work; Alecto stood and walked to the sink, taking a clean dishtowel from the cabinet. She ran the faucet and pressed the towel to her face. For several moments neither of them spoke but shared a smile. He poured them both a glass of juice as the broth simmered, resting his elbows on the counter. Alecto returned to her seat, taking down her long hair and running her fingers through it, bringing back some of its beauty.

"Thank you," she whispered, reaching out to touch his hand, letting her fingertips just barely brush his skin. It was an old habit of hers, but one offered only to a few people. Besides him, they were mostly her lovers. Barty was sure she did it with Evan, though he couldn't remember ever catching her in the act.

"Don't mention it, kid."

x x x

The cold water helped to ease the swelling around her eyes, but did not rouse her from her sluggish state. Alecto's face almost hurt from smiling, but she couldn't help it. Barty and his words, his mannerisms, his very way with her brought so many feelings, mostly security and memories of the best days of her life. She watched Barty, still in his pajamas, make her breakfast of vegetable soup. She took a sip of the pumpkin juice he had given her and liked the sweetness of it, but it burned her throat a bit. Alecto couldn't remember what she had last eaten. The night of the battle there had been a rack of lamb and some potatoes roasting, but no one had eaten it, and she had forgotten about it, and the house smelled of burnt meat for a whole day. The thought of that smell made her stomach turn.

Alecto did her best to push the thoughts of that night out of her brain. She wondered if she was the only one affected by Evan's death, or if the men she lived with were the type to grieve in silence. Barty didn't show any outward kind of anguish, but then again he had never been all that close with him. She watched raptly as her friend fussed with the range, cursing as he burnt a finger. His pale hair was messy and sort of bent on one side; she was sure it was from a heavy sleep. Barty was ladling soup into a gigantic bowl for her; as he shifted she caught the logo on his loose cotton pants. She sucked in a breath dramatically.

"You're wearing Braga team pants, Barty? How are we ever to be friends again?" she teased. He turned round and set the bowl of soup before her, a spoon in his other hand. He pursed his lips and rolled his eyes at her.

"Portugal is one of the best teams in the whole damn league and you know it, whenever you can agree with me I'll give you the spoon."

She rose up and wrenched it from his hand and sat down triumphantly, and with that they were back to the way things were. Fighting like brother and sister, and smiling the whole way through. Barty took a seat next to her and tasted her meal with his own spoon.

"Fine soup if I do say so," he murmured, and she watched him for a moment before trying it as well. It was wonderful, hot and a bit bland, with the tiny shell pasta she liked.

"You're handy with a tin," Alecto replied, nearly diving into the bowl. She ate vigorously and quietly, her shrunken stomach growing full. She picked up the piece of bread from earlier and dipped it into the broth. Her shoulders relaxed when she felt Barty's hand rest on her back.

"Better?" he asked, his eyes lingering on her face. She nodded, told him yes, she was much better around a mouthful of barley bread. He was smiling again, and she much preferred it to the scared look he had when he first came in.

x x x

She didn't eat much but he had expected that. Barty put a lid over the soup pot and turned off the burner, leaving her half-empty bowl next to the hob. He faced her again and noticed she was staring down at the floor, quivering slightly. He could tell there were tears coming soon. Leaning back against the range, he sighed. It was a little exhausting, going through the grieving process with her. But he owed her in a sense. Alecto had snuck into his dormitory at school every night for a week the spring that his mother had fallen ill for the second time and cast muffling spells around his bed when he cried like a little girl.

That was the way things worked between the two of them. She knew more about him than anyone in the world, certainly, his deepest fears and secrets and longings. In the same respect, Alecto had shared herself wholly with him, and even though they had never slept together (contradictory to a decade of rumors, incidentally) he had seen her naked in a way he was sure no other man ever would. Really, they were unlikely to ever be friends. His father was a bigwig in the Ministry, the kind of title that meant everyone knew his name. Her family struggled to hold onto whatever gold they could manage, running schemes street urchins would be ashamed to try, and she bore a name of shame. At Hogwarts he was considered a bored genius, she the school slut. But he saw past all her boyfriends and bad decisions, and she knew he was more than a reckless brat.

And so Barty walked across the room and scooped the small woman into his arms, holding her fiercely tight and perching her on the counter. He smoothed her hair as the quiet crying began, whispering to her as she wet his shirt with her tears. Her face was hot on his chest.

"I'm so sorry, kid," he murmured, and she tried to speak, "Why do the best people die, Barty? Why couldn't it have been someone who deserved it? Why wasn't it- I don't know, Rodolphus?"

He had wondered the same when mum fell ill. Why was it his mother, beautiful and kind and sweet, whose mind was deteriorating, and not his prick of a father? She was going to die, sooner than later. And his father was going to outlive him. He was sure of it. Barty tangled his fists in Alecto's thin shirt; he could feel her flesh behind his knuckles. He kissed her forehead and shook his head, their circumstances robbing him of words. He rested his head against hers, their noses touching. For a moment their breath and their anger and their hopelessness mingled.

And then, for the first time in ten years, something in their dynamic changed. He must have been driven to madness in his grief, over losing his friend, or watching Alecto waste away because of it, or just being stuck in the damn house for so long. Because otherwise it would have been daft for even letting that particular thought enter his mind; it was such a terrible idea.

It was such a terrible idea to kiss her.

A small sound escaped her throat as he sealed his mouth over hers, something like shock or bemusement or disgust or a little of all three. Immediately his brain told him to pull back, to chalk it up to an accident or some other stupid thing. But there must have been some miscommunication between his brain and his mouth because he stayed, kissed her slow and long. Her lips were puffy from days of weeping. Her breath was hot and tasted of vegetable soup.

She didn't really kiss him back. While Alecto neither pushed him off of her nor pulled away, she was rather limp in his arms. Barty took it as consent when she put her hands on his body, one resting on the small of his back and the other she laid flat over his sternum. After what felt like minutes or hours Barty was able to control himself again, taking his lips away from hers but still standing very close. She said nothing but tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth, looking blankly up at him. He placed his hand on her cheek, strands of her dark hair weaving their way into his knuckles. She laid one of hers, small and white, over his.

x x x

It was as if she had woken from a dream to find Barty Crouch, Junior with his mouth on hers; it seemed to happen just that quickly. She felt numb all over. If this had happened in the context of any other situation, Alecto would be doubled over in laughter, and tease him for years for it. But she had no words for him, unsure of how to react, unwilling to try. His hand was on his face and it was hot and comforting. Alecto swayed lightly, tired after days of sleeping, utterly exhausted. The urge to cry subsided, as if they had weathered another wave of grief. All that was left was a tiny wake.

Perhaps that was all there was to this mourning thing, keeping your head above water long enough to breathe.

"Got a cigarette?" she murmured, so quietly it was as if the words were stuck in her mouth. It was a start, a tiny step forward.


End file.
